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"He needn't have been so close," Miss Bellinghaaled with our affairs before long"
"They are proposing to take the case into Court, then?" said Thorndyke
"Yes," said Mr Bellingham "Jellicoe came to tell me that my cousin, Hurst, has instructed his solicitors to make the application and to invite me to join him Actually he came to deliver an ultimatum froathering with litigious discords"
"Nohy mustn't you?" asked Thorndyke "Why is a subject in which we are all keenly interested to be tabu? You don'tus about it, do you?"
"No, of course not But what do you think of a man who buttonholes a doctor at a dinner-party to retail a list of his ailments?"
"It depends on what his ailments are," replied Thorndyke "If he is a chronic dyspeptic and wishes to expound the virtues of Doctor Snaffler's Purple Pills for Pimply People, he is merely a bore But if he chances to suffer from soaly, the doctor will be delighted to listen"
"Then are we to understand," Miss Bellinghaal sense?"
"Undoubtedly," replied Thorndyke "The case of John Bellingham is, in many respects, unique It will be folloith the deepest interest by the profession at large, and especially bythat should be to us!" said Miss Bellingha fame in textbooks and treatises; and yet we are not so very much puffed up with our importance"
"No," said her father; "we could do without the fame quite well, and so, I think, could Hurst Did Berkeley tell you of the proposal that he ather from what you say that he has repeated it"
"Yes He sent Jellicoe to give hter was strongly against any coht At any rate, she is more concerned than I am"
"What view did Mr Jellicoe take?" Thorndyke asked
"Oh, he was very cautious and reserved, but he didn't disguise his feeling that I should be wise to take a certainty in lieu of a very probleree, for he naturally wishes to get the affair settled and pocket his legacy"
"And have you definitely refused?"
"Yes; quite definitely So Hurst will apply for permission to presume death and prove the will, and Jellicoe will support him; he says he has no choice"